Janina Wadon

May 6 1929 – June 15 2025

Beloved Mother and Grandmother.

Mom was born in Poland. During WWII her family farm was seized by the USSR and her family was deported to Siberia. There were thousands of Polish orphans in Russia living hand to mouth in Siberia. No country would offer them sanctuary. Hearing of their plight, the Maharaj of Kolhapur personally adopted 640 Polish orphans to circumvent the prohibition on bringing them to India by the British colonial government. They travelled 1,500 miles in trucks from Siberia, through Afghanistan and Persia to India where the Maharajah had set up an orphanage on his estate where my mom spent the rest of the war by the seashore in what by all accounts was paradise for the orphans.

She chose to emigrate to England after the war where she married and had children. Our family moved to Canada, living in Parkdale in Toronto and then moving to Toronto Island in the early 60's where she lived until the dissolution of her marriage in the 90's. She then bought an apartment in Mimico where she lived beside her beloved Lake Ontario until 2017 when a number of falls meant she needed full time assistance and she eventually found a new home at Lakeside Long Term Care where staff cared for her as if she were family.

Mom always put family first and her love knew no bounds. She passed peacefully at 96. She was ready. We were not.